Tube Thickness

Have you heard the term "heavy wall" in regard to flutes?  When we go to shows like the NFA, we do have people asking if we have "heavy wall" flutes.  So, what exactly is the "heavy wall" flute?

Well, "heavy wall" refers to the thickness of the body tubing.  For our silver Custom flutes, you have the choice of three different tube thicknesses: .014", .016", and .018."  In that series of measurements, the "heavy wall" is the .018" tubing, because is it the thickest tubing of the three.  Many of our flutes have the .016" thickness, including our Signature, Conservatory, and Aurumite models. Currently, most of our orders for silver Custom flutes request the .016" tubing as well.

The Custom silver flutes have thickness choices, but what about gold?  Platinum?  All of the Custom gold flutes (regardless of karat), have a body thickness of .012,"and the body tubing for platinum flutes is .010." 

It's good to keep these different body tubing thicknesses in mind when trying headjoints as well.  Silver headjoints are available in .014" and .016" tubing.  As you might recall from a previous post on silver headjoints (follow this link to read it), we found that the .018" tubing on silver headjoints didn't produce the desired sound qualities we were looking for with the .018" silver Custom body, so the .016" silver headjoint fits that particular flute.  Of course, if you have a .014" silver flute, the .016" headjoint would definitely not fit!  From yet another post (which you can read by following this link), we learned that sometimes the barrel thickness is different than the body thickness.  Lots to think about!  So, if you have the chance to try different thicknesses on silver flutes, see if you can feel and hear a difference.  Obviously, there's more than one size to fit all when it comes to silver!